Chances Are Good:​Design and Chance in Genesis 1

by Daniel Gordon

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen 1:1 ESV). Genesis 1:1-2:3 (hereafter “Genesis 1”) is a story of creation, written in “elevated prose.”[1] To what extent, if any, though, is it a story of design?[2]This question is, for this essay, more conceptual than linguistic: the question is whether our concept of design appears in Genesis 1, not if the author used some Hebrew word for “design”—though this would not be irrelevant. Our first move, then, is to define the English word design. Here are some definitions from Merriam-Webster:

[Transitive verb] (1) to create, fashion, execute, or construct according to plan; (2)(a) to conceive and plan out in the mind; (2)(b) to have as a purpose; (2)(c) to devise for a specific function or end; (4)(a) to make a drawing, pattern, or sketch of.

[Noun] (1)(a) a particular purpose or intention held in view by an individual or group; (2) a mental project or scheme in which means to an end are laid down; (4) a preliminary sketch or outline showing the main features of something to be executed; (5)(a) an underlying scheme that governs functioning, developing, or unfolding; (6) the arrangement of elements or details in a product or work of art.[3]

"Rather than casting design and chance as contradictory concepts, the story itself presents them in harmony by God’s will, actions, and approbations." ​

The core meaning of design appears to involve notions of plan, intention, scheme, purpose, and arrangement, both in the mind and in acts that bring an idea into physical form—acts that are representational (drawings, models, etc.) and actual (manufacture).

Space does not allow a thorough examination of ברא (br’), the Hebrew word “create.” Genesis 1 uses the word in the individual cases of humans and some animals (1:21, 27), and is equivalent to “make” (1:26-27). The author also uses the word in a broad, book-end way to refer to the totality of God’s actions in the story (1:1; 2:3), which would include God hovering (1:2), speaking (throughout), seeing (1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31), separating (1:4, 7), naming (1:5, 8, 10), making (1:7, 16, 21, 25, 26), setting (1:17), blessing (1:22, 28), and finishing (2:2).[4]

To ask Is Genesis 1 a story of design? is to ask whether the story gives readers the impression that plans, intentions, schemes, purposes, and/or arrangements are at work. It is to ask about mental and physical activity on the part of the agents involved.

A Story of Design?

Genesis 1 does not begin with God planning the world.[5] Depending on translation, however, the beginning of the story may sound like God is thoughtfully poised to act: “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters” (1:1-2 NRSV).[6] Readers might wonder whether God is sweeping this wind (or spirit) and doing nothing else, or whether it is implied that God is planning.

Second, consider the sequence in which both existent and new features of the world are arranged. Darkness (1:2) is followed by light (1:3-5). The sky is made, and the existent waters (1:2) are separated above and below it (1:6-8). The lower waters congregate to one place, and dry land emerges (1:9-10) and makes plants (1:11-13). Lights are placed in the sky (1:14-19). The waters and sky are filled with animals (1:20-22). The land is filled with animals and humans (1:24-28). Finally, humans and land animals are given plants for food (1:29-30). Each movement from “formless void” (1:2) to formed fullness strikes the reader as orderly, regardless of whether the order is planned or improvised.

Third, consider the story’s attention to varieties of plants and animals, marked especially by the word מין (myn, “kind” [10x—1:11, 12, 21, 24, 25]). Whether the varieties are planned or improvised—by God and/or the land and waters that make them (1:11-12, 20, 24)—the story frames the different forms not as threats to each other but as harmonious cohabitants of the same world. Everything fits. Everything belongs.

Fourth, consider God’s direct activity in fashioning the world: separating light and darkness (1:4); making the sky and separating waters (1:7); making lights (1:16), animals (1:21, 25), and humans (1:26-27); and speaking throughout the creating process, even when he is not the only one to perform actions in response.

Fifth, consider stated or implied purposes assigned to features of the world. The sky serves to separate waters (1:6). The “sky lights” serve to give light and to mark and govern time (1:14-15, 17-18). God’s command to animals and humans to “be fruitful and multiply” (1:22, 28) may articulate one (but not the only) purpose they serve. Humans are commanded to rule over the animals (1:26, 28); dominion is thus one purpose they serve. As for the plants, one purpose they serve is to feed humans and animals (1:29-30).

Finally, consider the divine approbations: God saw that “it was good” (7x).[7] Occurring as they do at regular intervals in the story, these approbations express the satisfaction God finds in the creations themselves, in their functions and purposes, and in the sequence and processes by which they come to be. As we have seen, the fulfilling of a foreplan may or may not be part of God’s satisfaction here. Even so, his satisfaction with what has actually occurred implies that the events satisfy his will, and this satisfying of his will may well constitute a form of design that is appropriate to the story being told.

A Story of Chance?

If Genesis 1 is a story of design, can it also be a story of chance? Merriam-Webster offers some of the following definitions of chance:

First, consider the creation of the seas and dry land. “And God said, ‘Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.’ And it was so” (1:9).[9] God does not gather the waters; he lets the waters be gathered. Nor does God make dry land appear; he lets it appear. This wording not only suggests the agency of the waters but leaves open the specifics of where and how the waters will be gathered.

Second, consider the creation of plants. “Then God said, ‘Let the earth put forth vegetation’… And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation” (1:11-12). God does not make plants; the earth does. And, as we just saw with the waters, the wording leaves open the specifics of how, where, and in what forms the earth will make plants.

Third, consider plant reproduction: “plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it” (1:11). God lets plants make more plants, without stipulating how they do so or constraining the outcomes.

Fourth, consider the creation of animals. “And God said, ‘Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures’… So God created…” (1:20-21). Formulated differently than previous acts, here the agency of waters and God are held together: “Let the waters bring forth/So God created.” It seems that waters bringing forth and God creating refer to the same event. Insofar as the waters exercise free agency, the story leaves unspecified how, where, and in what forms the waters produce animals. The same double agency and open-endedness characterize the creation of land animals (1:24-25).

Fifth, consider animal reproduction. “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth” (1:22). The land animals may have a similar mandate, but the command on Day 6 focuses on humans (1:28). God’s command, “be fruitful and multiply,” implies that God leaves it to animals to make more of themselves, including the decisions, actions, and outcomes entailed in such freedoms.

Sixth, consider the agency of the luminaries. “God set [the lights]… to give light upon the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness” (1:17-18). God’s task of separating light and darkness (1:4) he now hands over to the lights, which also assume the ruling of day and night and the governance of time. The themes of shared power, freedom, and open-endedness have now become familiar.

Seventh, consider the creation of humans. God makes humans himself (1:27), but his choice to identify his own image with them (1:26-27) entails taking a chance with his image and reputation—all the more so when coupled with God’s mandate to humans to rule over the animals (1:26, 28). If God allows humans freedom in fulfilling this mandate, then God seems to accept future outcomes that are not predetermined.

Finally, consider God finishing and resting (2:1-3). Readers sometimes quip, What did God do on the eighth day? The story ends without saying. Given the kind of world that God has (co‑) created, readers expect it to keep running. While this conclusion may give the story a deistic feel, the nature of God’s actions throughout the story might also lead readers to anticipate the kinds of ongoing involvement made explicit elsewhere (e.g., Ps 104). Regardless, statements that God finished and rested are reasons not for fear or despair but for joyous anticipation of what might come next.

Taking a Chance with Chance

Thus, Genesis 1 is both a story of design and of chance. Rather than casting design and chance as contradictory concepts, the story itself presents them in harmony by God’s will, actions, and approbations. In orderly fashion, God designs a highly organized world with varieties of interconnected and interdependent forms and functions, both living and nonliving. God’s design unfolds precisely alongside of, and in cooperation with, creatures who exercise agency without overly deterministic constraints from God.

Since Genesis 1 presents God designing a world in which chance is intrinsic, readers can see science in this light: both the law-like and the chance occurrences in nature are consonant with the sacred story. Indeed, how Christians respond to the concept of chance in science may depend in large part on how they contextualize the concept theologically. Is chance itself an occurrence outside of God’s sovereignty—or even evidence that God is not active or does not exist? If one’s theology excludes the possibility of chance, then claims of chance are likely to meet fierce resistance.

If, however, chance is precisely a feature of God’s design, then God’s existence, activity, and sovereignty are hardly threatened by occurrences of chance in the natural world. In the case of Genesis 1, whether or not it is scientific claims that push us to revisit the story, if we read it carefully, we will see that design and chance have been in the story all along. Leaving aside the issue of whether readers should have anticipated discoveries of chance by science, let us content ourselves to move forward with a view of God, Scripture, and science in which chance is at home.

So take a chance with chance. God did. And, as Genesis 1 frames them, chances are good.

Daniel Gordon is a son, brother, husband, and father. He earned a B.A. in Bible and an M.Div., spent 10 1/2 years in ministry, and has been an adjunct professor of undergraduate Bible at Lipscomb University (Nashville) since 2014. In 2016, he earned a D.Min. in Science and Theology from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. He has been published in Pittsburgh Theological Journal and ​Theology and Science journal, writes a blog on which he explores faith and science (http://danielgordonblog.com), and is presently transitioning into a full-time role in faith and science at Lipscomb..